Endoscopic surgeries are often preferred over traditional open surgical procedures because the smaller incision required by endoscopic surgical procedures tends to reduce the post-operative recovery time and complications. A variety of surgical procedures are currently performed by laparoscopic or other endoscopic techniques. Such procedures may include, for example, intestinal and stomach operations such as removal of colon cancer, hernia repairs, stomach stapling, removal of gall bladder, Ob/Gyn related surgeries as well as other procedures, such as those involving manipulations of a patient's spleen, liver, lung, heart, etc.
Consequently, significant development has gone into a range of endoscopic surgical instruments that are suitable for precise placement of a distal end effector at a desired surgical site through a cannula of a trocar that has been inserted into a patient. These distal end effectors engage or interact with the tissue in a number of ways to achieve a desired diagnostic or therapeutic effect. Such devices are often configured to perform a single type of surgical action (e.g., endocutter, grasper, cutter, staplers, clip applier, access device, drug/gene therapy delivery device, and energy device using ultrasound, RF, laser, etc.) which often requires the clinician to use several different instruments that are each only adapted to perform one action during a single operation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,235; U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,895; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,728,121 each disclose dedicated grasping instruments that may be used for endoscopic and laparoscopic procedures. For those procedures requiring the removal of tissue or specimens from the body (e.g., removal of a diseased gall bladder, appendix, etc.), dedicated specimen retrieval instruments such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,406,440 have been developed. For procedures requiring the cutting and severing of tissue, dedicated scissor instruments such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,605 have also been developed.
For those procedures involving the cutting and stapling of tissue, various surgical stapling devices have been designed. Such surgical stapling devices commonly include an end effector that simultaneously makes a longitudinal incision in tissue and applies lines of staples on opposing sides of the incision. The end effector includes a pair of cooperating jaw members that, if the instrument is intended for endoscopic or laparoscopic applications, are capable of passing through a cannula passageway. One form of surgical cutting and stapling device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,905,057. Such devices have a dedicated reusable drive and knife beam and are designed to be used with replaceable staple cartridges. Removable cartridges constructed to measure tissue thickness such as those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/729,008, entitled Laparoscopic Tissue Thickness and Clamp Load Measuring Devices, have also been designed for use with such instruments. Alternative curved end effector arrangements such as those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/729,008, entitled Surgical Stapler With Tapered Distal End, also have dedicated reusable knife and drive beam arrangements for use with removable/replaceable staple cartridges.
Other types of surgical stapling devices such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,361 are configured to operate with disposable loading units (DLU's) that are constructed to support a dedicated staple cartridge and knife assembly therein. Once the procedure is completed, the entire DLU is discarded. Such instruments that are designed to accommodate DLU's purport to offer the advantage of a “fresh” knife blade for each firing of the instrument. The reusable hand piece portion of such surgical stapling instruments was limited to use in connection with disposable loading units that were constructed to cut and staple tissue. Thus, for operations that involve various actions and procedures (e.g., grasping and manipulating tissue, cutting tissue, removal of tissue, applying clips and/or staples, cauterization of tissue, delivery of drugs and medicaments, etc.) a collection of different surgical instruments that are designed specifically to perform one of those actions in the past were required to be on hand.
Thus, there is a need for different types of interchangeable surgical tool attachments that may be used with a single surgical instrument hand piece.